


The Alphekkian Last Ring

by Danyay94



Series: The Valorchives [1]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Adventure, Other, War, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 09:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21525592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Danyay94/pseuds/Danyay94
Summary: A distress signal, hailed from the oceans of Alphekka Meridiana, sparks a rescue mission. With the Joramund Crusade prepping its new major offensives, the Supreme Headquarters calls for the famed Valor Batallion, Elysian 164th.It should be a run of the mill thing, right? Don't bet on it.
Series: The Valorchives [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551427





	1. 0

**The Alphekkian Last Link**

_(HMtGEOM-ON Erebos and HMtGEOM-ON Phobos darting through uranium icebergs, artistic representation.)_

**0**

_“In Y824.M30, the efforts to reclaim the lost colonies of Man were in their infancy. Although the cradle of humanity had been reunited under the Double-Headed Eagle and the Sol System freed from slavers, false tyrants and Xenos invaders, the outlying worlds were Terrae Incognita._

_One of these was the world of Alphekka Meridiana IV, the fourth planet in order from the local sun in the Star System of Alphekka Meridiana, located in the Corona Australis Constellation._

_Many names and civilizations had come and gone on its soil during Old Night, and no cartographical descriptions, maps or accounts of its geographical features were found by Magos Explorator lord Arkhan Land, nor any other archaeologists, in the Titanian Vault’rchive Expedition._

_As such, charting and mapping the new worlds had to be done through satellites, of which there were few available, or through exploratores and rogue traders, bold souls with the drive to rediscovery what once was or carve a new path for the burgeoning Great Crusade._

_[…]_

_In Y844.M30, the God-Emperor of Mankind bestowed upon the highpraetorian Imperial Navy Captain Sir Iohn Phran’Klaynn the authority to pursue an expedition upon Alphekka Meridiana IV, in order to localize and chart a north-eastern passage between the two major planetary continents and oceans, in an arctic strip of ocean water laded with uranium icebergs and whipped by strong winds. The existence of such a passage would’ve accelerated the industrial development of the newly reunited world, securing a stable trade route for the maritime ships carrying minerals and ores to the soon-to-be new astral elevators._

_Sir Iohn departed from Noctis-in-Hame Port, Holy Terra, on the 13 th day of June. The BASK Ark Mechanicvs Golden Door carried his fleet of two maritime vessels, HMtGEOMN-ON Erebos and HMtGEOM-ON Phobos, 290 souls on board, on location, disembarking them at Imperial Landing Site Primarys, immediately renamed Lady Terra’s Embrace._

_From it, the Erebos and Phobos sailed north-east, charting the edge of Unnamed Central Continent, baptized Crozyer in honour of Sir Iohn’s second-in-command. On November 26 th, Y.845.M30, Erebos and Phobos were last seen by lady Ulara Arat, one of the first iterators of the Great Crusade, sailing towards the dangerous waters of Baphfyn Gulf, searching for the north-eastern passage._

_Disaster struck the Sir Iohn Expedition at an unknown date, trapping his ships in the ice. A cairn message, later found by whalers come to the planet to hunt the hacrocephalods of the depths, informed the Crusade War Council that Sir Iohn had died, forty souls had been lost and the ships had been deserted._

_The crew of the Expedition was trying to move south, in order to shelter away from an unspecified danger located in the upper north-east and find help._

_[…]_

_In Y.852.M30, the rogue trader lord Illast Rayn, fifth to launch a rescue search of the Sir Iohn’s Lost Expedition, stumbled upon the cairn. He made contact with the local tribes of low-technology hunters, who spoke of daemons and evil spirits haunting the “star men”. He also found, just past the edge of the north-eastern passage, a life-vessel filled with twenty frozen skeletons, their bones engraved by bite-marks._

_The very idea that the Expedition, starving and plagued by illness, could fell victim to the madness of cannibalism offended the whole, nascent Imperivm._

_The tribes were discredited, their words regarded as the chatter of laughable, uncivilized tribesman still holding belief in spirits and daemons. Moreover, the position of the bones and the direction in which the lifeboat was turned, still pointing north-east, were taken as proof that the Sir Iohn Expedition had succeeded in its holy mission, dying one by one to see it through its divinely ordained end. The God-Emperor commissioned a statue in their honour, to be placed inside the Hall of Lost Exploratores on Apollyon, Luna._

_On its base was to be inscribed that the 290 souls of the Sir Iohn Expedition “[…] had faced the unknown, held high the torch of the Great Crusade and forged the Last Link between the two continents with their lives.”_

  * _**Extracts from: “The Heroic Age of the Crusading Exploration”, written by Juliana Oriniwana in M32.987.**_




	2. Chapter 2

**I**

_“[My fellow not](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yv3Xt_yp-aD6HMcOHkTXDqfyYgxVHZa_YHtAp9qRsm0/edit?fbclid=IwAR3RhTHiBC_PxAB4Go04FePwCVXhPtJKLAvGNS2au26dhYV3YG9eBQVJgwA), my comrade nary._

_A form entombed in mist._

_Scarr through the sand. Home held fast._

_Trembling blades ring weary._

_The tide rains down, their screams do drown, the wardens cries and pleads._

_Last wishes be shared,_

_stale grudges be spared.”_

**-A recovered fragment of “My Fellow not”, written by Lakeian of the Maicloddian*.**

**It dates probably M.29.Y029, though Imperial Scholars are unsure on the matter and willing to entertain the notion of a previous publication. The original opera was laid to rest in the revered halls of the Hvmanitas Bayeux in Alexandria Universalìs. After its loss in the War of the Beast, a single fragment remained. It was later ported in the Hallas Hyperion of the Imperial Palace.**

_Segmentvm Solar_

_Sol Sector, Heartland of the Imperivm_

_Sol, Mount Chaikerion, the low orbit of Luna_

_M42, Y.016, 24 th of May_

Whoever had done it [should’ve been shot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NWEmnRbkRw).

Why, in the name of all that was Holy in the Great Grand Imperivm, the idiot that came before had left the shower handle set on the cold? Yel’ena scowled, turning it on the red reference with a solid smack. Hissing out of the hose, a stream of hot water cascaded on her shoulders.

_If I catch that bastard…_

Scratching her arms with the soap bar, she watched the foam appear on her skin and dilute a second later, rolling down in the sink. Veils of steam rose from the wet pavement, channelling its steel blue tint in a myriad of fractured reflexes.

Smiling, Yel’ena juggled the soap bar. Now it was much, much better.

The noise produced by two and a half thousand showers all going on at the same time, underlined by a continuous thrum, echoed upwards, toward the vaulted roof. Metallic spines, shaped in the guise of great archers, jutted out, drawing elongated shadows upon the floor. Each was one hundred meters apart from its brethren and set three-times that length above the pavements. From their shapes, a sea of electric torches hung, shining like those little white stars that were visible in the night sky from the upper echelon of the spires of Holy Terra.

Everything in Sol was grander, greater, if not exaggerated. The taste for the titanic had deep roots in the Capital Heartland, and its opulence was a marvel as much as a weight on the eyes. It had its sense, though: the heart of an empire had to beat harder for all of its provinces.

Amidst jests, jokes and words, the downpour was an almost endless sound. Footsteps, hundreds at any given time, paced back and forth the wet corridors standing immediately behind the first row of octagonal shower-cubicles.

All that noise was endearing. Luna never slept, recalled an old and veritable adagio, and the same was true for the old Mount Chaikerion.

The fact that the Mount itself was islanded in the vast, cold silence of the cislunar space, in eternal vigil over the First Shore of Mankind, made those rumours, structures and lights a veritable testament to the ingenuity of the elders. Some legends passed down in Old Terra ascribed its birth to the earliest times of the Hvmana Inter-Astralìs Diaspora, when courageous argonaut-pioneers braved the darkness on the back of eleven gigantic eagles.

With all probability it was a metaphor for something else, though a nice one.

A laugh rolled on her tongue when she noticed, etched upon the disk plate, an inscription set in bronze capital letters, arched around the handle: “ _This item has been cast and forged with pride in the Manifactorvm Steel Pits of Mordor._ ”

Of course. Now, that was one location on the surface of Mercury she was not looking forward to visiting. Too hot, dusty and choke-full of _rude_ people.

Once she had lowered the stream to a minimum, Yel’ena turned to the synth-marble statue on the left of the cabin. It was shaped in the welcoming guise of the Selene Demi-Divine of the Sanctioned Sols, with her arms extended in a grand gesture of welcoming. The palms were turned to the arched roof, each holding a circular icon crossed in the middle by a single, straight segment.

The statue was a good fifteen centimetres taller than her, clothed only in a slim, silver chiton. It barely hanged around her hourglass waist. The left breast, shaped like a drop of water, was exposed, while the right was obscured by a stray of long hairs. Upon her brows stood a circlet of laurels, all grey and silver, with eleven etched gems, each a rampant eagle. In the exact centre, dripping towards her fine nose, there was a twelfth jewel, again a singular circle crossed in the middle by a line.

From her right hand, Yel’ena picked up a small, tall glass bottle of shampoo. She poured some and applied it on her short, dark hair.

“I’m telling you!” murmured someone in the passing crowd. “We smoked those Reps.”

“Yeah, but they’ll be back…”

“Oh, come on mate! We stamped ‘em out of Nycosium for good.”

Turning to see who was talking, Yel’ena caught the sight of two guards in black trousers and short, dark shirts with golden cuffs. Terran Knights, by the regimental insignia. Looking at their red tattoos, she made out a 52nd, set in crimson tones.

“From where are you from, brothers?”

“Heinelenna” said the taller of the two. At first glance, a mid-thirty someone with pale skin and little, acute blue eyes. “Why do you ask?”

The Eastern Fringe, then. There were no reasons to point him the fact that he was speaking with a superior. “I heard Nycosium. Maybe was the same Nycosium of Heinelenna I’ve been to some shifts ago. That’s all.”

The shorter one nodded with approval. “That Nycosium, yes.”

She waved them and returned her eyes on the shampoo bottle. Stamped on the advertisement foil there was the pictograph of a smiling young platinum girl, clothed in a red and golden chiton, similar to the one worn by the statue. Smiling with a hint of pride, she was holding an identical bottle to her chin. She was nice to look at, in a plain way. On her double-breasted dress, an Imperial Double-Headed Eagle stood rampant, wings stretched and one vigilant, severe eye gazing the infinite.

“Major?” asked a breathless Caius, breaking the moment. He almost stepped inside the cubicle, getting a stray of hot water on his boots. “Major? Can I bother you, sir?”

With one hand still immersed in her hair, Yel’ena gave him a stern look. “It depends, boy.”

After a split second, he looked away, with a gleam of embarrassment in his eyes. Poor thing, no longer a child and not yet a man.

“Is it important?” she asked him, giving her shoulder to the interior of the cubicle.

“Very much so, sir.”

Oh, was it? “Then, care to give me the details?”

From inside his coat Caius produced a small note, folded and sealed. “This came as an info-note ten minutes ago, sir. I had it printed at once.”He had also taken the time to put it in an envelope, close it and impress a proper stamp. Good lad.

“Fine, give it to me.”

“Sir, yes sir!” he replied like he had been offered a chance to be a hero. Trying to stay out of the cubicle, he stretched his arm, holding up the note.

Yel’ena tapped on the wet floor. “Caius?”

“Uhm, sir?”

 _For Terra’s Holy Tits…_ “Turning official documentation in an inky mud cake is not the brightest idea, don’t you think?”

Retreating his arm, he shocked his head. “Sir, yes sir.”

“And could you pass me a towel, while you are at it?”

“Oh, yes. A towel, sir” he fumbled away to take one. A second later he was trailing one out of cache held by a servitor’s arms. “Right away, sir. I am sorry, sir.”

“Well, better late than never!” Yel’ena quipped, drying her hands. She took the note from his hand and broke the seal with a snap, then she gave him a smack, right on the back of his neck. “Think before you act, Caius.”

“Yes, sir…”

“And don’t be sorry» she added while opening the letter. «It serves nothing. All it does is digging you deeper.”

The note was filled with forty-two lines of small, mechanical-arranged scriptures. The objective above, confined in a horizontal column of gunmetal winged skulls, was inscribed with the complete, formal address of the Crusade Supreme Command in a light tone of Imperial Shining Gold.

Reading its astropathic emission point, Yel’ena grinned. “Hurràh…”

While it had been shot to Mount Chaikerion by the anchored _HMtGEOM-THN Amphion_ , the HQ of the Lord Solar Von Jallen, its origin’s point was in Baphfyn Gulf, Alphekka Meridiana. Very interesting. Somewhat unusual for a Cardinal Code.

“I take you have already read the content of this” she held up the note, keeping it away from the whiffs of the water stream. “Am I right, lad?”

“Yes, sir. I… give it a look while I was printing it.”

 _Curious child._ “Then, you know what it means for the Battalion, too?”

His slanted eyes drifted around. “We are moving there?”

“Now you are catching up.” She replied, handing him back the letter. “Call the Command Staff for a meeting at hours 1800. Tell them it’s a Cardinal Code.”

The kid stood on attention before running out. He darted through the crowd, his footsteps drowned under a thousand voices chatting and as many sprinklers hissing and pumping. Fastening a towel around her waist, she gave out a brief sigh. There went their R&R! All of it because some prancing fool couldn’t find a bloody mercantile ship!

Before slipping out of the cubicle, she moved the shower handle on cold. Just a second later it was occupied by a pale, gaunt selenite naval mariner, already naked. “If I may, thank you very much sir…” he mumbled, getting inside. Giving him some space, Yel’ena stood aside. Etched upon his right shoulder was the visage of an Eliksni raider, its eyes shut by crosses. Underneath it stood a number, XXVII, all in a black tint.

She took a change of fatigues from the stretched arms of the servitor. The lobotomized thing beeped a signal from his grille that seemed happy. She patted him on the head, which was cold, pasty and bald. “You stay here, Fidvs! I’ll be back.”

Then the mariner jumped out of the cubicle. He almost slipped on the wet floor, stretching his dripping arms to hold on. “Fuck! Who the Horus left the water running on goddamn cold?!”

“It was the boy!” exclaimed Yel’ena, snapping her fingers in the complete opposite direction to the one taken by Caius. “I saw him! He went that way, the tricky bugger!”

“You little runt!” shouted the mariner, sticking his head out of the cabin. “Where is he?! Where’s that son of a bitch?”

 _Oi, watch it._ Suppressing her urge to either laugh at the shivering man or punch out a couple of his teeth, Yel’ena turned from left to right and back. A quizzing look, hard to keep on, was all she gave to the mariner. “Right now? He could be a whole segment away.”

“Fuck!”

“Ey, right? These moon-cheeqis!”

“Baphfyn Gulf, you said?” Decaius took a puff from his pipe. The serpentine of smoke he let out after a moment dazzled up, curved by the waves of the aero-circulatores. Their rotations were filling the room with almost fresh, ever-recycled air and a continuous, low hiss.

She threw a glance at the olo-lithic display that was hovering above her desk. Large as a lampus-sphere, Alphekka Meridiana was an elliptical patch of mountainous glaciers, long fjords cutting inland with a crude detail to it and fractured half-continents, showered by masses of greyish clouds. Circling its width at the equator, a large ring of orbital depots followed its cyclical evolutions, on itself and around Alpha Coronae Australis, in silence.

That place was truly a cold harbour. It wasn’t as hellish as the World of Bren, granted, nor freezing as Garon in the best days of the Long Summers, but still cold as the Warp itself. “This is what they have reported, commissar.”

Even the southern pole on Osiris II was warmer than it!

The commissar rolled his eyes, blacks as it was for many an elysian, then pointed the olo-lithic display with his pipe. “Yel’ena, I have read the copy you sent me. I was being rhetorical.”

“I know, and I have disturbed it.” She raised a hand, cruising through the projection. The image buzzed, still rotating. “I did it on purpose.”

“Could you not do that, major?”

“Why? I am at loss as much as you, old friend.”

Grumbling, Decaius clicked on the olo-lithic display; a red icon, in the shape of an arrowhead, was hovering over a stretch of water closed, on left and right, by a thousand broken islands. “What I don’t get is, why do they bother us? The people over there could dispatch a monitor ship and that’s it, problem solved. Why us? We have a Crusade mustering on our hands!”

“Well, as they say…” Placing her elbow on the desk, Yel’ena sneered. “If you lose a paper, ask the Administratum for a copy.”

“And you’ll probably get it in ten short years.” Captain Tariq Ben Elyssa crossed his arms against his chest. Leaning on the wall, he squinted at the olo-lithic display. A gleam passed in his black eyes, reflecting a brief amusement. Knowing him, Yel’ena could swear he was having an internal laugh.

The whole affair was worthy of it. “Thank you, captain. This clarification was needed.”

“Duty, knight-commissar.”

 _You are not fooling anybody, Tariq._ Holding off the urge to laugh at his staff’s bickering, Yel’ena stretched against her seat. The chair gave a faint, plastic croaking. “I was saying, gentlemen… If you lose a ship, go bother the Astra Militarum.”

“Let’s make a recap of this mess, shall we?” prompted Decaius, picking up a copy of the report. He passed his thumbs on their upper border, scuffling through the many papirian-foils. “Two weeks ago, the auspex watchtower at Saint Phen Parces in Alphekka Meridiana sent to the Mustering the normal roll-call of the day, accounting all the maritime vessels loading…”

Caius shuffled back from a large, squared synth-wooden file cabinet, dotted with many half-open drawers filled to the brim with data-prints, documents, parchments, scrolls and unopened packs of fresh papirius. In his hands, there was a half meter long scroll, laden with two swinging locks. “Here, m’lord. The list of materials that were placed on the various cargo ships.”

“Oy vey, I am not reading that, bar’!” Shouted Decaius, gesturing him to take the scroll away. “Call a clerk, damn you!”

“Let’s just say, a tonne of stuff?”

“A tonne of stuff, fine.” It wasn’t exactly a proper, Astra-Militarvm grade definition, but he could make do with it. Decaius was very adaptive. “Iron ingots, tractors, railways carriages, grenades, shells, frozen foodstuffs, industrial cranes and much more.”

Yel’ena snapped her fingers. The sound echoed through the room, hitting the metallic roof. “So, you did read that list!”

“Of course, I had!” Almost laughing, Decaius pressed a fist against his throat. “The point is, I don’t want to read it all over again!”

“Eh, that’s fair.” Yel’ena scrolled her shoulders. “One of the merchant cruisers, the HMtGEOM-TRKCN _Seikilos_ _,_ stopped beeping her answers nine days ago. A whaler ship saw her cruising inside Baphfyn Gulf, a bit too close to shore.”

Caressing his chin, Decaius threw a glance at the cogitator stationed on the desk. «Maybe she was trying to avoid a pack of uranium icebergs.”

For the sake of considering everything, it wasn’t such a farfetched idea. “That’s possible, commissar. Her silence could be nothing more than the radiations from the icebergs…” she drew a circle with her index, stopping after a couple of seconds. “Well, just making a mess of the Vox transmissions.”

“We should ask lord Mosharadàn about it, major.”

“Captain, I know I am not an anointed of the Machine Cult, thank you very much.”

“Again, sir; doing my duty.”

“ _Naytheist_ ” shrugged Yel’ena, leaning on her chair.

“Always.”

“Back on tracks” Decaius raised his pipe, the bowl exuding a serpentine shape of smoke, then placed his hand on the note. “Four days ago, that same watchtower reported no contact whatsoever with HMtGEOM-TRKCN _Seikilos_.”

Yel’ena waved him to continue. “No radios, no vox, and a storm is blinding all the reconcerebros available. In short, they don’t know where the bloody ship is, nor why it took that route.”

 _Oh, Great! Just great._ Yel’ena tilted her head towards his staff. “What they do know is that a six hundred meters long loch-hauler is gone missing around huge uranium icebergs and ninety kilometres per hour, brutal blizzards. What a fine mess they’ve gotten us into!”

Why it was never a nice place, though? For all the troubles she had already give them, grinned Yel’ena, fighting against the urge to feign the order had been lost to the Warp during transit, she could’ve at least lost herself in the warm, Osyrian cosy waters of Portvs Perlam!

She shocked her head. No, the feign was a stupid idea. Unfortunately, Crusade Command was too good for that kind of antics. They would’ve read through them like a cuman las-cutter with poor quality ferrocrete. “With all her cargo of ammunition and materials…”

Decaius clicked his teeth on the mouthpiece and his voice slurred to a quieter tone. “How can you lose a big fat whale like that?”

“It doesn’t matter. They appealed to our Lord Solar and now Crusade Supreme Command has to take the matter in its hands. Through mysterious ways, they determined that our battalion should be assigned to the S&R.”

His old friend rolled his eyes. “The last time I checked our operational _statvs_ , we were an Elysian drop troops battalion, not the accursed Venus Coast Guard.”

Tariq caressed his chin. “Sucks to be us.”

“Captain" chuckling, Yel’ena looked straight at him. “You can do better than _that_.”

“Hark, ancient-majores ensignvm!” he exclaimed, raising his hands. “Our fate indeed sucketh.”

 _Oh, now it’s much worse._ “Still, they call us to early mobilization.”

“ _Hurràh hurrah_ ” The commissar tapped again on the desk. «Just what we needed to get back into shape after that affair on Stalinvast…”

“Sir, no! Please!” Tariq raised a hand, almost as if he was stalling an opponent knight from delivering the _coup de grace_. “Don’t remind us of that cesspit!”

That had been one darning ugly story. After their raid on the Western Spire, the Xionian Ferrvm-Guard had to hack its way through the three rings of hive-city and later had to dispose of all the corpses left. From what she had gleaned about it on the Vox-channels, it took the Xionian lads the better part of four months to finish the mop-up operations.

_Poor guys._

“I will not resume Stalinvast unless it’s necessary,” remarked Decaius, tapping on the table with his index and middle fingers. “Still, the matter at hand.”

“In two days, we have to board the HMtGEOM-HVNN _Thunderchild II_ and leave port as soon as we can. A short warp hops in Alphekka and we can start searching for the Seikilos, this if she doesn’t show up before, wasting a week of our time for absolutely, positively nothing.”

“The lads will not be pleased hearing this.” Decaius took another long puff. “They had earned this rest, Yel’ena.”

“I know. Which is why it’s due I break them the news.” An unruly mob of starving peasants, just informed that their rations were to be halved for the third time in a row, would’ve been an easier public than her lads and gals. “At least, they still have this evening to wreak havoc on Luna and the Mount.”

*The poem does not belong to me. It was written, and thus is the property thereof, by my dear friend and baddol-bruvah L.! ^^


	3. II

**II**

_Segmentvm Solar_

_Sol Sector, Heartland of the Imperivm_

_Sol, Mount Chaikerion, the low orbit of Luna_

_M42, Y.016, 24 th of May_

Once more pulling down the control sceptre, Lyha softly kissed the Cog Mechanicvm hanging from her necklace. She looked round at the main screen, fighting the urge to smash it with a solid punch.

It had to work.

Though the four previous attempts had failed, she was hopeful for her solution, for scents and oils had turned out to be of no use. The Instructory Pamphlet only valuable council was to try again, pray the Machine-God for a benevolent intercession, then try again.

Rubbing her pale brow on the back of her blue flight suit cuff, she brought her fingers on the key-altar and pressed down the counselled inscriptions. She hissed in anger; her eyes fixed on the screen. It hadn’t gone away.

“The Percussive Maintenance!” exclaimed Sirio from the cockpit, sticking his head out. “Use that, you stupid broad!”

“Shut up!” she told him. Working would’ve been easier without him and his comrades interrupting her every minute. A moment later Lyha shocked his head. Why? Why the machine kept on disobeying her? What had she done to it to earn its ire?

“I am trying to work!”

Laughing at her, Ikaròs leaned out from the right-flank gunner port. “Ah-ah!” he said, swinging a finger. “You are _failing_ at your work. Quite the difference.”

“Sewn your sewer, Ik’.”

“Can’t mute the truth.”

“I will mute you with this rod” she murmured, menacingly waving one of her screwdrivers. “If you don’t shut up.”

Wired to the gunship’s main cogitator-shard by a dozen of bulging copper cables, the control station was humming a repetitive orchestra of warnings. The command panel blinked, appearing for a second. At last, it had worked!

Hovering the cursor on the operations-surveyor, Lyha pressed on it. The window menu emerged out of the blue, offering her a scroll of options. Clicking on the one she needed, the pilot smiled. The Instructory Pamphlet was never wrong, she knew it. How could it be, written by an anointed tech-priest?

The panel disappeared under a blue layout and a loud thud hailed from the machine. Sighing, Lyha put her hands to her head and whispered a curse.

Leaning on the cogitator she was operating, Aurelios Markhairena looked at it and scratched his neck. The main screen, completely blue, was filled from top to bottom with long chains of runes and AdMech-Text scrolling down. An interrogation mark punctuated the last line, where a question was waiting, twinkling once every two seconds.

“I’d press the N” he told her, pointing at the second letter inside the square parenthesis, “It looks promisin’ to me…”

The pilot turned to him. “That would impose a definite shut-down on the crane, you bloody idiot.”

“Only tryin’ to help, gal,” said, Aurelios, raising his hands. He snapped open one of his pockets, picking up a pack of smokes. “A Russ?”

“No, thanks.”

“Eh, your loss.” Lighting up the Lucky Russ, Aurelios took a nice breath. The cover depicted a dozen guardsmen, with brown fatigues and bowl-shaped helmets and fixed bayonets, going over the top of a trench to charge a line of Republican scum.

The pilot tapped again. A short, loud horn hailed from the machine, stopping her. The crane’s arm remained unresponsive, stuck a good meter below the Valkyrie’s right-wing. “Gulp it down, you stupid bitch!”

“I don’t think it’s working, Lyha.”

“It always works!” As the horn raged in her face, the screen remained blue. “The Controllivm-StopMotionae-AbortAction cannot be wrong!”

“Well…” Shifting to her left, Aurelios crossed his arms. “Looks to me it is.”

“I know” she exhaled, clutching the monitor.

“And you know why?”

“No!” Shaking the indifferent screen, Lyha glanced the crane. “I don’t know why I am sweating seven fucking shirts. If I’d known, we wouldn’t be stuck here.”

Laughing, Ikaròs raised a gloved thumb. “Reassuring!”

The spherical searchlights burst into life, flashing a blinding white light all around them. Aurelios covered his eyes, clenching his teeth. As it came to be, their flash fizzled out, reverting their glass-like surface to an opaque tint of dark grey.

“And these balls don’t work, too!” she mumbled, picking up the screwdriver from the bottom of the screen.

Clapping his hands, Sirio unsheathed a grin. “Well, then! Have you tried working the shaft?”

Lyha raised her eyes, finding him seated on the Valkyrie’s beak, his legs hanging down at the level of the front-mounted multi-bolter. “Go Horus yourself.”

Sirio left the cockpit, jumping down on the dirty floor. “Next time, maybe. Now, should we call for a tech-priest?”

“For what, a couple of searchlights?” Lyha waved a hand. “None would bother.”

Aurelios shrugged. Preach to that! “A Witcher, then?”

“The arm is busted, not haunted by a Selkimo.”

“How do you know what a Selkimo is, blondie?”

“Because we fought one three weeks ago.”

“Oh, right. I kind of forgot about that…” murmured Aurelios. He sighed, crossing his arms. He was one head and a half taller than Sirio and broader of shoulder, though he shared with him, in a close likeness, the small, acute dark eyes of the Elysian people.

His skin was a darker tint of bronze, hued by a dozen stars and years of service to the Holy Emperor’s Astra Militarvm. His face had a mischievous quality to it, with a rugged profile somehow closer to Ikaròs’, rather than the nobler, patrician lines of Sirio. “Let’s take care of the problem we have right now, though. The arm is busted, as you said, and the searchlights are faulty.”

Nodding, Sirio passed a hand through his short black hair. “Also, they are stuck.”

“Like us!” added Ikaròs, snapping his fingers. “I still don’t get why we have to trudge through this chore while half of the crusade is whoring down on Luna…”

Throwing away what remained of his smoke, Aurelios knelt and picked up the Instructory Pamphlet. “Because someone had to do maintenance!”

“Sucks to be us, then…”

“What are you going to do with that, Aur’?” Sirio asked him. “You can’t read.”

“Of course, I can!”, he protested slamming the massive tome on the monitor. “I’m not very good at it, but I can, you nob’.”

“That’s why you sound like an Ork…”

The crane strummed. A surge of power reverberated pulsed through its structure, from the circular base to its overbearing, out-stretched mechanical arm. The hooks left off the searchlights. Rolling on the left, they ended their run against a box of ammunition.

“Well…” smirking at the pilot, Aurelios cocked an eyebrow. “The arm is workin’ again!”

Sirio began to clap his hands again. “What was they saying about the whole weight of culture?”

“I don’t know, brother. Tell me!” He leaned on the book, tapping on its title. “Something ‘bout a fortress, I think. And some other groxshit about… gates?”

“You pressed the reset!” bellowed Lyha, pushing him aside. “You stupid bastard!”

“Oh, no. I didn’t.” Said Aurelios tapping on the tome. “The book did it.”

Having pinched the power-cord of the crane, Ikaròs took a step back. “It’s hot.”

Lending back the push to Lyha, Aurelios cocked his head. “Could we cook some grub on it?” Then, he gave the pilot, bent on her knees panting against a service-tripod, a quick glance. “Hey, you ok?”

“You almost killed me!”

Aurelios shrugged. “High-grav genes. Can’t help it.”

Rising once more from its slumber, the crane scratched the underwing. Still startled by the push, Lyha get back on her feet and throw the book out of her way. She pinched some more keys, trying to impose a stop on the machine.

The twin hooks slammed against the gunship’s hull, then swung in the opposite direction, scattering a stack of metal boxes on the floor.

“We need to call a tech-priest.”

Eyeing the vending machine, Aurelios took out a transactionaes-scheda from his wallet. Holding it between his index and middle finger, he glanced back at the gunship station. Lyha was busy talking to a red-robed, hunched figure while Sirio and Ikaròs were watching, seated on a large box of las-clips.

Judging from how slowly and repetitively he was waving his servo-arms around the main cogitator, the tech-priest was quite bored by the whole affair.

 _At least they sent someone to fix the arm..._ Sliding the transactionaes-scheda in the reader, Aurelios tapped on the floor. Their wait had been short, in a sense. It had only taken one entire hour for someone in the upper levels to notify the closest temple.

It could’ve been much, much worse.

Aurelios pressed the number LXVII on the little keyboard left of the window, then kneeled to pick up a cold can of Nuclearivs Colam. Nicking the upper strap, he looked at the bottom. Looking at the roof, cruised by cherubs and servo-skulls, he grunted.

It was a common one, again. After a sip, he walked back to the gunship’ repairing station. A servo-sentinel, its humanoid arms busy holding a pale tank of promethium, strode before him. A familiar light rhythm was coming out of the cockpit, echoing against the dirtied marble pillars stretching upwards to the arched roof. Gesturing a salute to the pilot, Aurelios began to hum it along.

“[ _Ovesturian Virginie_ …](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRPeYP6gS-s)” Shifting the can from the left to the right, he launched another one to Sirio, who caught it before it could hit the Valkyrie’s hull. “ _Matrix cimae_ , _egho in domus returnami_ …”

Crooked upon the control sceptre, the tech-priest gave him a look. Under the hood there was a pair of shining amber eyes, almost bordering on an orange tint. “The correct form would be _ritornami_ , you idiot. “

“Ah. Didn’t know that, me’lord.”

“My lady, thank you.”

“Right…”

“Brother, would you like a spade?” Asked Ikaròs. “To dig you deeper, no?”

The tech-priestess stood up. For a moment, she hovered a small, grey censer above the sceptre. Leaving it to one of her mechandrites, she pulled it down with a gloved, normal hand. The main cogitator thrummed, giving way to a virtual black slap over which some incomplete lines of text were shimmering. A loud warning overcame it, preceding the return of the blue lay-out.

“My diagnosis is that this servile mechanical arm is suffering from a… “ She grabbed a flimsy plastek wired to the monitor by a twin set of cables. “Fatal case of CDIV Ailment.”

“In Low Gothic?”

“Iron for the scrapyards.”

“And the searchlights?” asked Lyha.

“Spare parts for the scrapyards.”

“So, it’s all rubbish?”

“That’s offensive to the Machine-God, pilot.” The tech-priestess disconnected her plastek from the monitor. “We usually opt for the definition of salvageable material.”

“This means you can’t fix it?”

“No. Correction: I could restore the machine to its proper functions if I had more time, will and benevolent disposition towards you lot.”

Offering her the Nuclerivm Cola, Aurelios sheathed a smirk: “Would you like some refreshment?”

“No. I don’t like that _eau de sewer_.”

 _Works for me!_ “We have a stash of beers inside the Valkyrie.”

“I know.”

“How do you know it?!”

The tech-priestess blinked. “I speak with the machine-spirits. Besides, those beers are disgusting. Listen to me; it’s thirty pasts 10 PM and I am tired. I have a symposium to attend with my brothers of faith and this arm is more effort than its worth. Move the Valkyrie to another position and…”

“And?”

Leaving an exacerbated sigh, the tech-priestess raised a hand. “Get out of this hangar. Get down to Luna. Enjoy the festivals. A grand amount of one supervisor is controlling this area and he will be fast asleep in about three, two, one… now.”

Sirio laughed. “Did you poison him?”

“Sleeping pills are not considered venoms. Rather, they are sedatives.”

Leaving the can on the monitor, Aurelios snapped his tongue. “Let me get this straight… since you have no intentions of working, you did us a solid?”

“Question: quite stupid. The answer, though unnecessary: yes. Final judgement: fuck off and let me enjoy my symposium.”

Pointing her with his index, Ikaròs shocked his head. “You are the best tech-priestess in the whole Sol Sector, miss.”

“ _Lady_.”

“Lady miss, yes.”

“No, only lady”

Aurelios bowed, then turned to face Ikaròs and Sirio. “Lads, I know a shortcut that would get us to the main elevators in ten minutes or less.”

“Fewer” punctuated the tech-priestess.

“Oh, thanks. Didn’t know it.”

“Sounds like a plan, Aur’” Sirio got up, smacking his combat trouser from the dust. “Let’s go, then.”

As they were leaving, Caius bolted out of the staircase. “The Major called for a gathering!”

“Fuck…”


End file.
